


The Next Step

by lady_wordsmith



Series: Memories (Bucky/Reader) [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel, Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Winter Soldier (Comics)
Genre: Amnesia, Angst, F/M, Hopeful Ending, Memory Loss, Past Relationship(s), Reader-Insert, Romance, slight PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-02
Updated: 2016-02-02
Packaged: 2018-05-17 21:05:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5885155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lady_wordsmith/pseuds/lady_wordsmith
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Boston holds no answers, so Bucky leaves. It's only when he does that he finds the lead he might just need to find you.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Next Step

> _"Could you be happy here with me?" Bucky remembered asking you the question once. You had blinked owlishly and just… stared at him._
> 
> _It was pretty unnerving, your stare. While Bucky didn’t see it often, when he did he wanted to say whatever was necessary to make it stop. Maybe he just needed to get used to being looked at in such an unabashed and unclinical way._
> 
> _It took you some time to speak. The two of you had been eating and you chewed carefully, as if turning the matter over in over your thoughts._
> 
> _“Like this? On the run?” you finally asked him._
> 
> _Bucky shrugged helplessly. The two of you couldn’t run from HYDRA forever, he knew. Eventually they would find you. The idea only frightened him when it came to you. When it came to himself, he knew he was too valuable for HYDRA to kill, which was terrifying but he was confident in his abilities to escape again. But you… He had no idea what they wanted you for, and you might just be disposable to them._
> 
> _“I… I just…” he tried telling you his thoughts, the things in his heart that you made him feel._
> 
> _You had reached over and took his metal hand in both of yours. It always amazed him, the way you looked past the metal arm. You would grab his metal hand in public as often as his real one, but you did so in private, too, often pulling the metal arm around you in an embrace as if it were incidental._
> 
> _“I know, Bucky,” you said. “I know.”_

 

That was all he could remember of that conversation. Had you ever given him an answer? Just another question he had.

It was his last day in Boston. He had packed up what few things he had, and using the internet, figured out the farthest train station in the city from his apartment. He had said goodbye to Will the previous night, lying one last time and telling him he had received an employment offer in New York City. Will had insisted in breaking out his good whiskey and giving Bucky a toast.

“To life and love, my boy!” he had said to Bucky.

Bucky had chuckled lightly and clinked glasses with the old man. Will _was_ kind of right about that. Bucky had decided Boston didn’t hold the answers he was looking for, and that he would likely need help if he wanted to figure anything out, least of all you.

He would miss Will, though, and his stories about Las Vegas and his courtship with Edith. Maybe he’d keep in touch, once he was done searching for answers.

* * *

He had chosen the farthest train station because he knew he would never be able to shake that feeling of being watched. His plan was to call Steve at the train station, because calling at the apartment building was dangerous. He would have had to use Will’s phone, and he would be damned if he ran the risk of putting the old man in any kind of danger. Using a pay phone at the station was the safest option. The line he was calling was probably secure, but if HYDRA was tracking him (or even attempting to), it was best to fly under the radar, give no cause for suspicion, and put nobody in any unnecessary danger.

Steve had picked up the phone almost right away and had known it was him, all but confirming Bucky’s suspicions the line was secure. He had been a flurry of questions, but Bucky had no real answers.

“I’m catching a train to New York.” He told him. “Will you meet me when I get in?”

“Of course,” Steve answered, sounding confused. “Where are y-“

Bucky hung up the phone. Best to keep calls short and sweet. You had told him once that it only took about fifteen seconds to track calls these days, even on cell phones.

As he bought a ticket with the cash Will had given him, he found himself wondering if he ever apologized for crushing your cell phone after you told him that.

* * *

 

The train ride took just over three and a half hours, but Bucky didn’t mind. It gave him time to think, to plan what he would say and do.

The little research he had been able to do concerning you had unearthed nothing. Not just things that didn’t add up to much, but absolutely nothing. Everyone had a presence these days, Bucky remembered you saying, and could be found given enough time.

But it was like you had never existed.

That was… troubling. Bucky knew he should have been able to find something on you, at least something from before HYDRA had abducted you, if nothing else. It unnerved him more than a little that he couldn’t even find that. It didn’t bode well.

If you were… Bucky shook his head. He wouldn’t, _couldn’t,_ allow himself to think you were dead. You had to be alive, in hiding somewhere, perhaps. Because if you were dead, or not in hiding… Bucky couldn’t complete the thought, but he knew of HYDRA’s capacity for cruelty.

If you weren’t in hiding, that meant HYDRA could have you. They could have made you like him, erased your memories and turned you into a blank slate for whatever purpose they had in mind. But that was only if you had something they valued. Bucky knew that, if you hadn’t escaped, it was far more likely you were dead, and there was only one scenario he could think of for that.

And the thought that he was the one to put a bullet in your brain was more than he could bear. But he knew that if you were dead, HYDRA would have seen to it that your death would have been cruel, not only to you, but to Bucky if he ever escaped their clutches.

The thought teased at the edges of his mind. Bucky slammed his eyes shut, willing the images in his head to go away, of him facing you as you tried to beg him not to, tears in your eyes while his own were vacant and dead…

He barely even noticed the tears on his face.

* * *

Steve was already at the station when Bucky’s train came in. Bucky was surprised. He hadn’t called Steve back to tell him when he was coming in.

_Punk probably got down to the train station right after I hung up_ , Bucky thought as he walked over to him.

Someone was with Steve, a black man Bucky faintly remembered from Washington. None of them said anything beyond a perfunctory exchange of greetings. It was understood that it was better to talk outside of the public eye.

Once they had gotten to Steve’s apartment, Bucky quietly paced, not speaking as he tried to collect his thoughts. Steve and Sam gave him his space, though Steve occasionally gave Bucky a worried glance.

“I need your help,” Bucky finally said, piercing the uneasy quiet. “But it’s not about me.”

Bucky could feel two piercing sets of eyes on him as he collected his thoughts.

“I escaped HYDRA once. Before Washington.” He told them. He struggled for a moment, taking deep gulps of air, uncertain how much he should say. “But there was someone with me. A woman. I don’t know what happened to her.”

He looked up finally, meeting Steve’s eyes.

“I… We… We were…” Bucky couldn’t say it. It was that he was ashamed, or embarrassed. He felt guilt, guilt at being recaptured, at you being left to a fate he was still uncertain of. “We need to find her. Steve, please. I don’t know what they did.”

Then he waited. It was probably only a few seconds. It felt so much longer before Steve nodded.

“Alright, Buck,” he said, reaching out a hand and placing it on Bucky’s shoulder. “We’ll find her.”

“We need to know everything you remember about her.” Sam said, nodding to indicate that he was in on this.

“It’s not much.” Bucky told them.

“Start at the beginning.” Steve said.

And so Bucky did. He started by telling them your name and physical description. That had been the easy part. He may not have been like Steve, with the memory and artist’s capacity for detail, but all he had to do was close his eyes and think of you and you were there, whole and complete and in such detail he was almost certain he could reach out and touch you.

Telling them the hows and whys of what he remembered happening was harder. There were still large gaps, to begin with. Even then, telling them he had fallen in love with you and then being certain he had failed you somehow, if he had ended up back with HYDRA… Those doubts back on the train from Boston crept into his mind.

They had listened. Sam seemed to show some recognition at your name, but only spoke when Bucky was done.

“I might be mistaken,” Sam said, looking straight at Bucky. “And I probably shouldn’t be telling you this anyway. Something from a vet I counseled. But there was a group of people in Boston a few years ago. Mostly engineering and computer majors from the local colleges, mostly kids along with a few vets making use of the GI Bill, a couple odds and ends, the guy said. He gave me a list of their names and talents, said if anything happened to him I was to contact one of them and tell them it started.

”Said they were part of something. He tried telling me, but I didn’t understand it at the time, thought it was just one of those campus justice groups. After HYDRA, I thought back a bit and realized these people were probably part of something, trying to expose and stop them. But by then I had nothing to go on.”

Sam sighed, and Bucky felt a bit of hesitation, but he had to know.

“What happened?” he asked.

“Guy told me he was going off the grid about a year and a half ago. Never had to use the list and tossed it. But there was a name on there, not the girl’s, but similar. A brother or cousin, I guess. But I didn’t connect all the pieces I had until just now.

“Some guy came up to the VA once about a year before my counselee left, I guess to pick him up. We got to chatting, the three of us. He mentioned someone with your girl’s name to the guy I was counseling. Specifically he mentioned the girl’s name in conjunction with the guy on the list, like they were related. Talked like the girl was still around, said she was being a handful. It felt like code but I didn’t think much of it at the time.”

“You’re sure?” Steve asked, looking over at Bucky, his face reading concern.

“Positive.” Sam confirmed. “It was just before all the stuff went down with HYDRA. If this is your girl, she’s alive, or at least was sometime after Cap here was found.”

“We… I knew her, before then. It was before.” Bucky said, his heart lifting for the first time in ages. You might have escaped, you might still be alive. The thought was almost more than he could handle.

“I don’t know for sure, if it’s the same girl.” Sam reminded him.

“Boston… there was _something_ about Boston and her. I don’t remember what, but I remember her and Boston somehow.” Bucky insisted. “It can’t be a coincidence.”

Steve nodded. It was obvious to Bucky he was formulating a plan.

“Can you contact this guy, this counselee of yours?” Steve asked Sam. Sam shook his head.

“Like I said, he went off the grid just before D.C.” Sam repeated, and Bucky’s heart fell again. He was so close…

“But I may be able to contact someone else. His emergency contact, a few others who knew him.” Sam explained, looking over at Bucky. “Give me a day, I may find something.”

Bucky nodded.

“It’s more than I have.” He said to Sam, as a way of thanks.

He felt closer now, closer to finding you. He _would_ find you, even if this didn’t pan out and led nowhere. He had to.


End file.
